Title: Systematic waste elimination in lean product development using generic activities

Authors: Guenther Schuh; Kai Korthals; Stefan Rudolf; Stefan Breunig

Addresses: Department of Innovation Management, Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Steinbachstr. 19, 52056 Aachen, Germany ' Department of Innovation Management, Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Steinbachstr. 19, 52056 Aachen, Germany ' Department of Innovation Management, Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Steinbachstr. 19, 52056 Aachen, Germany ' Department of Innovation Management, Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL), RWTH Aachen University, Steinbachstr. 19, 52056 Aachen, Germany

Abstract: In the context of lean product development, the Value Stream Analysis (VSA) has proven to be an effective approach for the elimination of waste in product development processes. While this method focuses on the detection of waste by analysing the dependencies and interaction of activities in the development processes, the execution of the activities themselves is not further examined, although a great potential for the elimination of waste within activities can be identified. This paper introduces a new approach to analyse the execution of product development activities and eliminate waste. Generic activity types within the development processes are derived and their ideal and lean execution is defined. To utilise the generic activities for the optimisation of product development activities, a specific procedure applicable within a VSA is presented.

Keywords: lean product development; VSA; value stream analysis; waste elimination; development activities; generic activities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2014.064886

International Journal of Product Development, 2014 Vol.19 No.5/6, pp.388 - 412

Received: 04 Jul 2013
Accepted: 01 Jun 2014
Published online: 23 Oct 2014 *

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